


Holding Snow

by mi_lky



Category: Given (Anime), Given (Manga)
Genre: 3+1, Angst/Comfort, Crying, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Yuki’s Guitar, canon divergence? maybe? who knows, im crying too ok, implied sexual content (it’s easy to miss), mentioned character death (that’s the plot of given whoops), three plus one things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27523372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mi_lky/pseuds/mi_lky
Summary: Winter is cursed to have snowfall, and Mafuyu holds onto pieces of Yuki even when the snow has stopped falling.Alternatively: Three times Mafuyu saw Yuki in Uenoyama, and the one time that Yuki wasn’t there anymore.
Relationships: Satou Mafuyu & Uenoyama Ritsuka, Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka, Satou Mafuyu/Yoshida Yuuki
Comments: 2
Kudos: 77





	Holding Snow

**1.**

For as long as Mafuyu can remember, Yuki was there. Yuki would wait at the park when they were kids, Yuki would walk Mafuyu back home before running off to band practice, and Yuki would hold his hands as they giggled themselves sick while hiding from Hiiragi. 

Yuki would also tease him for a torturously long time until Mafuyu hissed at him to _move_ , but those memories are usually disregarded hazy, regretful dreams, dreams that haunt him and continue to remind him that Yuki isn’t there anymore. 

Mafuyu woke up gasping and clawing at anything he could, which isn’t much in a cramped studio while Haruki and Akihiko are outside during break. 

“Yuki?” He whines. “Where...?” Mafuyu’s eyes painfully open themselves from their hibernation in a desperate search for Yuki’s shining red- 

Instead, he meets panicked blue. 

“Mafuyu?” Uenoyama pitches, voice curling into worry that mimics the curve of his frown and the pinch of his eyebrows. 

Yuki isn’t there. Mafuyu reminds himself. He can’t bring himself to smile and reassure Uenoyama, so he blinks and sends him a dazed look. 

“Are... Are you sick or something?” Uenoyama asks, the concern he fails to mask dripping like a popsicle on a summer day. “Are you okay?” 

Mafuyu can’t bring himself to answer so he nods in Uenoyama’s direction. He really wants Uenoyama to say something, anything. He wants the words to fall out and fill just a little bit of hole that’s been punched in his heart. 

But Uenoyama doesn’t, silence as thick as snow on the day Yuki left him. 

Uenoyama is there, but not in the way Mafuyu needs, and Yuki is here but not in the way Mafuyu wants. 

**2.**

It’s lunchtime again, spent on their stairwell. Mafuyu is very good at pretending to sleep- which is exactly what he’s doing right now, but this time with Uenoyama by his side. 

Uenoyama has his own guitar out. He picks a few scales and strums chords with practiced familiarity. _How very Uenoyama,_ Mafuyu muses. With his hair covering his forehead, Mafuyu can stare at him through slitted eyes without getting caught. Uenoyama’s face is furrowed in concentration as he tries to remember something. Suddenly, it slips into realization and pride and he strums chords on his guitar again. 

“Aruba, Jamaica, oh I wanna take you…” 

Mafuyu’s breath hitches quietly, unnoticed by the ever-so-focused Uenoyama. It’s rare to even hear him hum, let alone sing. He probably thinks Mafuyu is asleep. The song he's singing is in english English- completely foreign but all too familiar to Mafuyu. 

_The beginning of winter once was Mafuyu’s favorite part of the whole year. The snow wasn't dirty yet and it was still fresh and fluffy._

_“Yuki! Stop it! Tell me what you’re saying!” Mafuyu begged, poking Yuki’s shoulder as they rolled around in the snow. Yuki laughed and tumbled into Mafuyu’s side._

_“I’m singing about a tropical paradise. It’s English, but it’s not like you study enough to know.” He grumbled. “Aren’t you sick of the cold yet?”_

_“I study_ **_Japanese_ ** _and I know that your name is literally snow, so you shouldn’t be complaining about it being cold.” Mafuyu shot back, ruffling Yuki’s blonde hair free of snowflakes. “Sing it more.”_

_“Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama…”_

_“Mama? Why are you bringing my mom into this?” He teased, lacing their fingers together when they inevitably stood back up._

_Yuki, ever the charmer, ignored his boyfriend and began dragging him back into the warmth of his house._

_“Key Largo, Montego, baby why don’t we go?”_

_“Baby?” Mafuyu hummed as he unlatched the door._

_His charming boyfriend ignored him again, dragging Mafuyu into the house without even bothering to undo their winter clothes. It’s ridiculous, waltzing around in bulky coats with Yuki’s voice bouncing off the walls around them._

_“Oh, I want to take you down to Kokomo,”_

With his eyes closed, Mafuyu can see Yuki. He can feel the warm puffs of breath next to his cheek and the cold snow melting in his borrowed (read: stolen) scarf. Caught up in memories, Mafuyu can’t bring himself to steal a gaze at Uenoyama. 

Mafuyu remembers falling to the bed on the same side he’s spying on Uenoyama from. Uenoyama is farther anyway than Yuki was, but the tune carries the same. 

“We'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow… That's where we want to go...”

Yuki and Uenoyama share the same tang in their voice. If Mafuyu’s voice was honey, they would both be coffee.

(Yuki’s was a bit more bitter, he thinks)

The last voice Mafuyu fell asleep to was Yuki’s, but he finds his mind slipping away into dreamland from Uenoyama and Yuki’s beachside tune ringing in his ears. 

_“Way down in Kokomo…”_

He dreams of that paradise island where he can be happy again. 

**3.**

The first time Mafuyu held Yuki’s guitar, Hiiragi made fun of him because “red clashed with his hair funny c’mon on Yuki you can’t do your boyfriend’s looks justice with a hideous color like that-“ and Yuki almost drilled him into the ground while Mafuyu clung to the glossy material with a giant smile. 

The second time Mafuyu held Yuki’s guitar, he didn’t let go for 2 nights and fell asleep with the tuning pegs digging into the side of his neck. 

The third time, he sobs into the strings and tries to shred the stupid thing with his nails. Mafuyu’s fingers bleed. 

And then Mafuyu simply didn’t let go of it, the same way he stubbornly refused to cry over Yuki ever again. He wore it on his back at the train stop, pitifully running his fingers over the casing’s strap because Yuki’s hands couldn’t, he set it in the seat next to him on the near-empty train car because Yuki couldn’t, and at night he’d stare at the battered case with dry eyes until he fell asleep in his bed that was too cold and too big. 

He had never let go, not until he met Uenoyama, bathed like a flustered angel in window-filtered sunshine. He didn’t even let go on purpose- Mafuyu’s hands just simply detached; he let the grumpy stranger hold a piece of his broken heart. 

Uenoyama would balk at Mafuyu calling him grumpy- the same way Yuki pouted when Mafuyu called him bratty. Both hands cared for the guitar when Mafuyu couldn’t. 

After that, the times Mafuyu holds the guitar is with Uenoyama. 

He giggles quietly with his hands cradling Yuki’s guitar on his lap at practice, when Uenoyama throws a drumstick at Haruki the same way Yuki would stomp on Hiiragi’s shoelaces. 

He’d strum a few chords with his inexperienced fingers with Uenoyama on the stairwell, the sunlight pouring through the windows and painting his nervous laugh the same color as Yuki’s smug cackle when he’d make a terrible joke. 

On that night, it’s Uenoyama again, bathed in the spotlight the same way the train lights lit up Yuki’s silhouette as Mafuyu turned away from him. 

Uenoyama’s blue eyes share the same shock as Yuki’s red ones when Mafuyu opens his mouth. Then slowly, his mouth curves into the same smirk Yuki wore when he’d snark or fluster Mafuyu. 

_Finally_ , the expression reads. The orange-haired boy tears his eyes away from the memory of Yuki. His body is screaming at him to do the same; let go of the guitar. Mafuyu refuses and the chords rattle through his shaky fingertips and add to pure passion Uenoyama adds underneath it. 

Uenoyama. He can hear Uenoyama, and he can’t see Yuki anymore. Uenoyama, Uenoyama, until he hits the final chord and his wrist aches from the force behind it. 

The crowd erupts into shouts. Almost immediately, Uenoyama has his arm thrown protectively over Mafuyu’s shoulders. One of Mafuyu’s hands clutches Yuki’s guitar as they shuffle off stage, his heart denting a hole where it’s pressed to his chest. The other digs into the back of the other’s shirt. 

They don’t stop walking until Haruki’s even, but panic-laced voice is a dull hum in the background. 

“Thank yo-“ Mafuyu tries, voice soft, but it’s swallowed by the heated kiss Uenoyama pulls him into, unabashedly bold and stinging with fire. 

For a second, he remembers Yuki again, but it’s back to Uenoyama’s string-tight fingers pressing into his hair. Mafuyu’s lips tremble against Uenoyama’s. 

“You did so good out there.” Uenoyama half-growls, hands cupping the sides of Mafuyu’s face. The way his stomach drops is vaguely familiar to when Yuki would drop into a voice like that- but it’s not Yuki anymore. It’s Uenoyama, walking back onstage as Mafuyu stands numbly. It’s Uenoyama, black hair and black shirt burned into Mafuyu’s eyes that used to only see Yuki. 

His hands drop the guitar and the strap pulls his neck right below where Uenoyama’s arm was when they left the stage together.

**+1**

For the first time in months, the weight in Mafuyu’s hands isn’t Yuki’s guitar. 

It’s his own tears. 

Mafuyu’s knees almost give out from the sheer weight of it and he sinks to the stairs. 

**Author's Note:**

> okay so this was gonna be a 5+1? but then,,,, yeah outta motivation. if you can tell..... w/ the ending.... i just took what was there and made do so yep. 
> 
> A BIG OL THANKS TO MY BESTIE BAE (twt: @ whatever is is now it changes just check my mentions) FOR HELPING EVEN THOUGH WE LIKE FORGOT ABOUT THIS WHOLE THING 
> 
> also thanks for reading ;”D this is like the 2nd decently cohesive given work ive posted wooop whoop. 
> 
> <3! 
> 
> —
> 
> twt: harstiny


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